Films of Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca

"In their film work, Bárbara Wagner and de Burca counter the impulse to categorize culture in terms that are fixed--or deemed "folk" by organizations such as UNESCO--by exploring cultural change across generations and geographies. Their work celebrates--and reframes--vernacular cultural forms as they have manifested through time; as popular traditions become pop culture, for instance. Through their films, the artists examine a space in between, where cultural forms of the past adapt in response to changing economic conditions--particularly in emerging economies or post-colonial geographical contexts--and where popular genres persist through cultural mixing and diasporic refashioning. The artists look to how performative forms of colonial cultural resistance in Brazil's northeast, in particular, continue today but in revised expression. For the protagonists of Wagner and de Burca's films, self-fashioning becomes a means of political, economic, and social survival. Currently based in the north east of Brazil, in Recife, Wagner and de Burca have been collaborating since 2011. Their recent films have been at Skulpture Projekt Münster (2017), Front International (2018), the 33rd São Paulo Biennial (2018), and the Berlinale (2019). They are representing Brazil at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Designed by Lisa Kiss, this book discusses their collaborative film practice, including the work slated to premiere in Venice. It includes essays by Emelie Chhangur (Toronto, AGYU), André Lepecki (New York), Evan Moffitt (New York), and Hélio Menezes (Brazil)."--